


Warriors of a Different Kind

by Drel_Murn



Series: Step by Step [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baoshan, Baoshan City Guard, Consequences, Dreamsharing, Earthbending & Earthbenders, Fire Nation (Avatar), Fire Nation Capital, Fire Nation Royal Family, Gen, Hidden History, Honoiro, Honoiro | Fire Nation Capital, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kyoshi Island, Kyoshi Warriors - Freeform, Meddling, Meddling Spirits, Philosophy, Servants, Spies & Secret Agents, Spirit World, Spirits, Trust, Waterbending & Waterbenders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2018-10-06 21:14:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10344693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drel_Murn/pseuds/Drel_Murn
Summary: Minato wanted to know more about the world.Kiran wanted a purpose.HIkari just wants to stop feeling like she's responsible for the mess of the past Hundred Years just because she's Fire Nation.





	1. Kyoshi Island

Kyoshi Island has long been considered odd, and to tell the truth, I can see why. I’ve only ever heard of one place like it before, and the people of the Foggy Swamp are considered even odder than we are. People don’t understand us. If I told anyone from outside the island that I was a waterbender, they would ask which of my parents was from the Water Tribes, and which tribe it was.

 

That’s not . . . how it works. It’s about who you are, not just where you’re from. I am a waterbender, but none of my parents or grandparents or any relatives as far back as we can recall have been Water Tribe. But I’m a waterbender. My sister’s an earthbender.

 

Of course, I could just be shifting the blame, most places also think that Kyoshi Island’s weird because it seems like we’ve only got female warriors. While that’s not entirely true, we do certainly give off that appearance.

 

“Minato, break’s over.” I glance up to see Etsuka grinning down at me. I quickly finish off the bowl of rice I’d been neglecting and get to my feet. I set my dishes down on the counter so that they’re off the floor, then reapply my lipstick as I walk over to the group.

 

“So, what were you thinking about this time?” Kushala asks as I drop into the stretches with the rest of the group, and I grin back at her.

 

“Oh, you know, the usual,” I reply. “We’re a weird island with weird people.”

 

A laugh sweeps over the group at my usual answer, and we switch positions. When we’re done stretching, we spar. Several of the others, mostly the women who are mothers, have to go leave early to make dinner. In the end, I turn politely away as we change to give the illusion of privacy.

 

“Minato! Minato!” Yumiko calls as I step onto the porch, and I drop to my knees to hug her. Her arms wrap around me for a moment before she turns and points at the boy following her. “Tell Taro that you’re the bestest big brother ever!”

 

“He is not!” Taro screeches as I swing Yumiko up and settle her onto my hip as I stand. “Susumu’s the bestest brother in the world.”

 

Then he glances at me, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry Minato. It’s not that you’re not really good, but it’s just that Susumu’s the best!”

 

“It’s fine, Taro,” I reassure the little boy before he can get too guilty. “Why don’t you run back home? I’m sure your mom’s going to have dinner ready soon.”

 

Taro’s eyes light up at the mention of food, and he runs back towards his home, calling out goodbye as he leaps off the porch.

 

“Susumu’s not really the best, is he?” Yumiko asks as I slide the door open, and I glance down to see she has her nose scrunched up.

 

“Of course he isn’t.“ I tap her on her nose and make her laugh a little. “But we don’t want Taro to cry, so we’ll just keep who the real best brother is to ourselves, alright?”

 

“Alright!” Yumiko says brightly as I set her down and adjust my bag.

 

“Minato!” Mom calls as I pass the kitchen. “Set the table!”

 

“I will,” I reply. “I’m just putting my bag away first!”

 

The bag goes onto the table in the corner of my room, before I head back out to set the table for dinner. It’s another normal day, and while it might be boring, at least it’s safe.

 

()

 

I slide a hand to the left in front of me, just in time to deflect the falling water into the pond.

 

“Really, Kiran? This is a dream, dumping water on me won’t make me wake up.”

 

The girl laughs as she settles down next to me. “I’ll get you some day. Or, something will happen, and you’ll be glad I did this, because you won’t have to think.”

 

“Ah, yes, the mysterious someday, this far off future that has yet to come.”

 

“I’m not joking,” Kiran says seriously, sitting down next to me, and I feel a pang of guilt as I remember.

 

“Sorry, I forgot-”

 

“-that I actually have to fight, while you get to laze around and practice, and etcetera, I know,” Kirna interrupts, her eyes gazing somewhere in the middle distance. “I don’t really blame you. Besides, it’s not like I’m personally fighting yet.”

 

She shakes out her hair, and runs her fingers through it. “So, anything new in your ponderings today?”

 

I laugh, and tell her my musings on how and why exactly Kyoshi Island is different. Just as I’m wrapping my explanation up, Hikari appears from the forest between one moment and the next. Her face is pale as death, sending both Kiran and me on the alert.

 

“What is it?” I ask, pushing myself to my feet, and jumping the pond to grab her shoulders.

 

“Fire Lord Azulon is dead. Ozai is to take his place.” She trembles under my hands, eyes unseeing. “Long love Fire Lord Ozai. Long may he reign.”

 

Oh.  _ Oh. _ Oh, Face Stealer.

 

“And Iroh?” I ask a little desperately. Neither of the brothers were the best of people, but for any choice between them, I would choose Iroh. At least he cared about his children. But Hikari is already shaking her head, eyes focusing on my face.

 

“He’s still gone.”

 

“Ashes,” I mutter, letting Kiran shove me aside and grab Hikari. I run the royal family through my mind, trying to figure out who would be next in line, who we wanted to be next. If Iroh got passed up, he won’t get back into the line of succession, and since his son Lu Ten is gone, next in line is -

 

“What about Prince Zuko?” Kiran asks. “How is he?”

 

“I think -” Hikari pauses to breathe, gulping it like she’d forgotten and had to remind herself. “I think that he’s either going to break, withdraw, or run. His mother, uncle, and cousin are gone. Even Vasuman - his servant - left. Azula and Ozai . . . aren’t exactly close to him.”

 

“Koh take it,” I mutter, bringing a hand up to rub at my eyes as I lean against a tree. Kiran lets got of Hikari to pace the edge of the small pond. “He’s the last one who might work. Can you get closer to him?”

 

“I can try,” Hikari replies, wringing her hands. “I don’t think it’ll work though. Azula doesn’t really spend time with Prince Zuko, and I need to be there for her.”

 

“Why do we even bother?” Kiran groans. “Obviously we can’t really do anything, no matter where we are!”

 

“We bother because this is where we live,” I say. “We bother because if we do nothing, we are only hurting ourselves.”

 

This is a well worn argument, but it’s one that I know Kiran needs to hear. Hikari huffs out a laugh as she hastily wipes away her tears.

 

“If nothing else, fight for the future. Fight for the children, so they no longer have to live in fear,” I say, the both of them mouthing the words along with me.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Kiran grumbles, but her weary smile betrays her feelings. “I swear, even though you always use the same words, you manage to make that speech sound more inspirational every time.”

 

“Say that all you want, you’re the one who falls for it, every single time,” I scoff playfully. Kiran yells in mock offence, and tackles me into the pond. I come up sputtering to hear Hikari laughing, and I eye her speculatively.

 

“Hey!” she yelps as she bobs out of the water next to me. “Unfair use of bending!”

 

We spend the rest of that night’s dream splashing at each other in the pool. For all that I argued that we fight, none of the three of us were really in any position to do so without too big of a risk.

 

Sometimes I feel like I’m a spy. I love my mother and my family, and the rest of the warriors in the village are nice, but I don’t really have any close friendships here. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I left the island. If I left Mom. If I left Yumiko. I’m thirteen, two years older than Hikari. If I wanted to, I could easily leave my mother’s house and make my own household.

 

I know exactly where I’d build the house. There’s this old clearing out on the edge of town that would be perfect. Sometimes I go there, and I sit on the dirt to stare at the grass of the clearing between the last house and the forest. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if Hikari and Kiran had been born on the island.

 

I try to imagine it, but I can’t. I can’t see Kiran without the odd quirks that crossdressing for so long in order to get into the army had given her. I can’t see Hikari without the odd grace she always moves with, grace so utterly different from everything I know, and yet so beautiful.

 

I try to imagine myself with them, but I can’t. I can’t imagine being in the Earth Kingdom, and not applying makeup to fight. I know that’s what Kiran does everyday. I can’t imagine being disgusted by the fact that Kiran, a girl, was fighting. I can’t imagine myself in the Fire Nation. Kyoshi had traded with the Air Nomads when they flew out, if they didn’t wreak havoc. When the Fire Nation marched on the temples, we took in the surviving Air Nomads, and I can’t imagine being taught that they’re wrong. I can’t imagine Shouhei fighting for anything but to protect others.

 

Kyoshi is one of the Earth Kingdoms, everyone says. 

 

This is Earth Kingdom land, so its children should bend earth, they say. Which parent was a waterbender? Why are you a waterbender?  _ Why can’t you be normal, and follow the rules like everyone else? _

 

What is normal? What is normal, when to my people, I am normal? What is normal, when standards differ so widely even within places lumped clumsily together?

 

This is what I think of sometimes, when I have too much time alone, when I’m working on the fields. I guess, that sometimes I think too much.

 

Sometimes I’m not normal.

 

()

 

I wake up to the sound of the front door closing and stare at the ceiling for a moment before I propel myself out of bed. I put my futon away and open the door into Yumiko’s room.

 

“Hey, sleepy,” I smile down at my little sister as I gently shake her.

 

“Minato?” she half asks half yawns, rubbing her eyes. “Alright, I’m up.”

 

“See you in a couple of minutes,” I tell her gently before I head back to my room.

 

I quickly change into the work clothes I’d folded and put onto the shelf in my closet last night, then make my way down stairs. I sit down and start in on my breakfast so that I can prepare lunch.

 

Yumiko stumbles down a couple of minutes after me, yawning and blinking against the light as she sits down. I glance up when I hear people run past outside, calling something about an outsider, but I’m off duty, so I my attention quickly returns to my little sister. If whoever it is has left by noon or not, I’ll learn about them from the others. Right now is my time off.

 

“Hey, do you think Mom will tell us about the outsider at dinner?” Yumiko asks excitedly, absently putting more rice into her mouth as I glance up at the open window.

 

“She might if you’re good,” I reply, glancing back down at her. “Are you done?”

 

Yumiko hurriedly slurps down the rest of the soup, then nods at me. I giver her a smile as I take her dished over to the sink basin to wash. It’s easy enough to bend soapy water over the surface of the dishes to get all of the food off, and soon, the both of us are putting our shoes on to go out. I make sure that we avoid the pole with Kyoshi’s statue so that Yumiko doesn’t see the hazing routine we give to all newcomers as we make our way out to the fields.

 

I carefully check each of our fields for their depths as Yumiko skips along side me. A couple of times, I have to go up to the well to bring the water level of a patty back up to the proper level. We head back down to the village for lunch, and I eat that as quickly as I’d eaten breakfast, then hurry upstairs to change into my uniform and paint on the makeup. Mom comes in as I rush down the stairs, and her easy smile put the lingering fear to rest.

 

“We’re fairly sure that he’s not a spy for the Fire Nation, but we’re going to hold him for a while longer,” she murmurs as to me as I pause next to her.

 

“Thanks,” I reply softly, glancing back at Yumiko for a moment, then heading to the square to relieve one of the warriors on duty. I catch Etsuka’s gaze across the square the crowd, and she nods in acknowledgement red lips pursed as she turns, taking account of the afternoon shift warriors who are here, and the morning shift warriors who haven’t been relieved yet.

 

I avoid looking at the center of the square. I’ve seen what we do to outsiders we don’t know, and while it’s not the worst thing I’ve seen, it’s not something I’ll subject myself to if I don’t have to. Beyond the wall, I can see the patrol returning from the beach, chatting amongst themselves.

 

“Please,” the prisoner’s voice drifts to me in one of the natural silences that sometimes comes over a crowd. “Please, my name is Vasuman, and I mean no harm.”

 

_ Vasuman _ , I think to myself, turning the sound of the name over in my head. I try not to learn names just in case, but it’s too late now.  _ Vasuman. I could swear that I’ve heard- Last night, Hikari said Prince Zuko’s servant's name was - no _

 

Before I can stop myself, I’m walking towards the prisoner. The questioners glance at me, then step aside as I kneel down in front of the boy who’s around my age, maybe a year younger. I feel a twinge as I glance over the blood on his face the grab his collar and lean forward. My mind flies through facts I’d learned about Prince Zuko over the years, things that Hikari had been present for, and therefor Prince Zuko’s servant probably would have seen as well.

 

“What did Azulon tell Ozai when he asked for the throne?” I whisper, and the boy’s breathing shutters to a halt for a moment before he whispers his reply with a cracked whisper.

 

“You should learn the pain of losing a child.”

 

I sit back on my heels to regard the boy in front of me, and he stares back with wide eyes that don’t focus on the same point. He’s slumped against the pole holding Kyoshi’s statue, and where the rope doesn’t support him, he’s swaying slightly. I weigh the pros and cons for a moment as I watch him try to focus on my face again, then I stand.

 

“I’ll claim responsibility.”

 

A wave of murmuring sweeps through the crowd. Doing this wasn’t unheard of, but I was both rather young, and had never been off the island, Despite that, I was a Kyoshi warrior, so I had the authority to do as needed. I glance at Etsuka in time to see her nodding to the questioners and coming forward to help me undo the rope.

 

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” the woman murmurs to me as she helps me unwind the rope from around the pole.

 

“So do I,” I mutter, kneeling down and bracing Vasuman against the pole as he sways forward without the support of the rope ties.

 

“Back to regular duty!” Etska calls to the warriors around the edge of the square as I pull his arm over my shoulder. I stagger a little at the tug of his weight pulling me off balance.

 

“You want the rope?” Estuka asks, turning back to me. I grimace at the thought of carrying more weight, but I nod in response to Etsuka’s question. Even if this is truly the Vasuman that Hikari knows, I’m bringing him to my home, to where my baby sister is. I’m not going to take any more chances than I have to. I make my way back home slowly, and let the boy down to sit on the porch.

 

He blinks as me, his eyes not entirely focused still, but at least he’s sitting up on his own right now. “Who are you?”

 

“I’m a Kyoshi warrior,” I reply as I tie him up again. The thick rope works for his wrists and ankles, the to make doubly sure, I pull out a thinner piece of rope from my kit and use it to tie his thumbs together.

 

“But, you’re a guy,” Vasuman says. “Last time I checked, the Kyoshi warriors weren’t guys. It was all girls.”

 

I shake my head and pick him up. “That’s what we want people to think. Lots of men are taught not fight girls, it throws them off when they come here.”

 

“Guys are stupid,” the boy mutters as I carry him up the stairs, and I laugh.

 

“You’re a guy.”

 

“Noo, I’m a kitsune. Look!” I glance down to see what he’s doing, and pause at the sight of his hands free. Then the words register, and I nearly drop him.

 

“You’re a kitsune?” I ask, not really hiding my amusement. A kitsune is honestly one of the least strange things I’ve heard someone with a concussion claiming to be. We’re in front of the door to my room.

 

“Yep!” Vasuman says happily. I slide the door open easily with my foot, years of practice in doing it with Yumiko paying off.

 

“Well, can you sit here for a moment?” I ask as I set him down on the floor.

 

“Why?” he asks, reminding me of Yumiko a month or so ago, when she’d asked me why I did everything I did, and why things happened.

 

“I need to get you the futon,” I comment as I move towards the closet.

 

“Why?”

 

“You’re sick.” I pull the futon out.

 

“Sick?” I glance back - and pause. Vasuman’s gone. The only thing in the room is a fox, that is crouched down defensively.

 

“Vasuman?”

 

I set down the futon. The fox regards me warily for a moment as I peer down at it after glancing down around the room, for lack of a better option.

 

“Who are you?” the fox - no, not a fox, the kitsune asks.

 

“I’m Minato.”

 

“Names don’t really tell much. Why did you take responsibility for me?” the kitsune snaps back, lightning quick.

 

“I know someone who knows someone I thought might be you,” I shrug. I eye the kitsune and think back to when it had taken human form. It’s eyes had been the beep brown of someone from the far reaches of the Fire Nation, though now, they’re both an odd shade of orange. “Are you Vasuman, servant of Prince Zuko?”

 

Vasuman stares at me, and I go back over my statement a couple of times, trying to figure out what I said wrong, when it occurs to me that people don’t usually call the royalty of the nation they’re at war with by the proper title, and I mentally hiss at myself. Either way, it’s too late to take back what I’d said, so I stare defiantly at the kitsune.

 

“Yes,” Vasuman says, the words coming slow, as if he is choosing them with great care. “I am  _ Prince Zuko’s _ servant. Tell me, Minato, where did you come from?”

 

“I come from this village. I was born in this house.” I pause for a moment. “I’ve never left the island. Tell me Vasuman, what do you think should happen to the Fire Nation?”

 

“I think it should collapse, and return to the city state system it had before,” Vasuman replies vehemently and immediately. “For as long as I’ve been watching, those have always lasted the longest.Everyone needs an equal, or the whole thing topples sooner or later, no matter how virtuous your leader is.”

 

“Even the Avatar?”

 

Vasuman stares at me for a long moment, then he grins with sharp teeth. “The Avatar is what makes you equal to the spirits, and while no one human is his equal, even two together are so much more.”

 

“I believe you,” I say softly, and for a minute, there’s silence. Then Vasuman makes a noise like a sigh, and raises himself from the crouching position he’d held, and he wrapped his tail around his paws, looking almost like a cat for a moment.

 

“So, you truly are a Kyoshi warrior?” he asks. “I had thought that the warriors of Kyoshi were all female.”

 

“They’re not.” I turn back to the futon and start to smooth it out, for lack of anything better to do. “Most villages have a couple of guys. It’s mostly teenagers, boys that want to help out their mothers, who drop out when they go to join their own family. They weren’t about to stop anyone from joining, but the uniform’s the same.”

 

I pause for a moment to glance up at Vasmuan. “Most men are told over and over not to hit women, so we try to take advantage of that.”

 

“That makes sense.” There’s an awkward silence for a moment. “You did a good job. At pretending to be a girl I mean. If I wasn’t a kitsune, I wouldn’t have noticed.”

 

“Thanks,” I sigh. “Look, we’re stuck with each other until you can be trusted. You obviously don’t have a concussion anymore, so what do you want to do?”

 

“Well,” Vasuman says, and while I can’t read his face as a kitsune, his voice sounds thoughtful, “how much do you know about spirits?”

 

()

 

Life goes on. For the time being, I’m taken off of the active afternoon shift entirely, and left to practice with whichever group is off duty.

 

Vasuman shifted back before my mother and sister came home, and I never told anyone that he was a kitsune, so as far as I know, no one but me knows. Even without the added attraction of a furry animal, Yumiko takes a liking to Vasuman, dragging him out into the yard to show him whatever new earthbending move she had learned from Mom when we got back from practice. My mother is more reserved, but her attitude softens over the weeks as she watches Vasuman take care of Yumiko.

 

(Vasuman is bewildered by my sister’s attention.

 

“She’s acting like I’m another sibling,” he explains to me one night, looking slightly bewildered. “That’s never really happened to me before. Hey, stop laughing at me!”)

 

Hikari told me the news of Zuko’s disappearance, and I repeated that same news to Vasuman about a week after she told me.

 

Time passes, and we grow into what I suppose could be called friends. The question he asked me back on the first day led to a plethora of explanations about spirits and the spirit world, and slowly, stories that had before contained actions from spirits that didn’t really make sense resolved themselves into perfectly following the logic of the world that Vasuman was revealing to me.

 

I passed everything I learned from him on to Hikari and Kiran in my dreams, and they told stories I hadn’t know, one by one, each fitting neatly into the framework I’d suddenly been given.

 

(“The spirits don’t just have one whole different culture, they have as infinitely many as you humans do. And to make communication problems worse, it’s like they speak a different language,” he’d explained.)

 

I once asked him about hoshi no tama. He had readily explained many other things about spirits and kitsune to me, including the fact that kitsune are odd creatures. They have the powers of spirits, and thus are regarded as such by humans. But they live and die with humans, and are regarded as such by spirits. He’d even explained that foxes were much like the avatar, meant to uphold order.

 

(I got side tracked at that, and asked him what had happened a hundred years ago, when the Fire Nation killed the Air Nomads. He’d wrinkled his nose. “Air spirits were all getting in a huff. Some didn’t want to live in the temples, and they started a war. Humans didn’t really know about it, but every kitsune I knew, and several I didn’t were there, trying to soothed the air spirits. We didn’t realise what the Sozin was doing until it was too late.”)

 

Surely hoshi no tama were nothing in comparison to admitting a hung failure to do their job. But  he went pale and unresponsive. I never asked him again.

 

(When I told Kiran about it, and confided that it looked very much like the war sickness that some of the older Kyoshi warriors had, she grew thoughtful.

 

“There are legends where hoshi no tama are a kitsune’s soul,” she’d said after a moment. “Imagine what someone could do to you if they got their hands on your soul.”

 

Suddenly, his reaction made more sense to me. Neither of us mentioned it to Hikari when she finally arrived. She was younger than the both of us by a couple of years, and I guess we didn’t want to spoil the seeming innocence she had.)

 

When we were alone with nothing else to do, and the air was thick with fright of the great spirits, sometimes we would spar. Vasuman took on different shapes for this, and taught me how to fight and win against as many different body types as he could remember.

 

Two months after his arrival, I’m slowly put back on active duty for the afternoon shift. It starts once a week, then twice, increasing again and again until I was back to a full four out of every eight days. The build up was torture, reminding me of the days when I was even newer, of when I first joined in and had no idea what I was doing.

 

Then, a month after I was finally back to regular duty it came.

 

()

 

It started like a storm, with black clouds in the distance on the southern horizon.People were warned, and every one prepared for it as best they could. Firewood was taken inside, windows were closed and bolted securely shut, roofs were checked for any leaks with the help of waterbenders, and fixed promptly.

 

Then, someone notices the sound. It had faded in so neatly that until it was pointed out, I hadn’t noticed the screaming and moaning that the cloud bank brought with it. Once I heard it, I couldn’t stop.

 

I stare at the cloud, feeling very cold, and sick. Now that I’m looking at it, I can see things in the cloud. I can see the spirits fading in and out, and driving the cloud forwards, giving it power it wouldn’t have naturally. “Inari.”

 

La is crueler than his distant wife, and the people to the south are his people. He does not take kindly to their death and defeat, and he does not hesitate to make his displeasure known.

 

“It’s finally coming,” Vasuman says grimly, and I glance to my right to see him with his eyes fixed on the cloud.

 

“You knew?”

 

Vasuman meets my eyes, his own the orange that shows when his emotions are running high. “The Fire Nation sent troops to the south on the rumor of a waterbender a couple of months ago. I figured that it wouldn’t end well, like every other raid they’ve made.”

 

“That would explain it,” I say, the words bitter in my mouth as I glance back up at the storm. “We haven’t seen La this bitter in decades. Since before I was born.”

 

I make a decision, and turn on my heel. “Vasuman, go tell everyone you can find that his is a spirit storm.”

 

“What? Minato? Where are you going?”

 

“I need to tell the warriors,” I say grimly, not looking back. “Go!”

 

()

 

Etsuka’s out of uniform when I find her, but she listens to me, glances up at the cloud, and goes pale. She tells me to get back home, and to send my mother out.

 

“You don’t need me?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

 

“It’s not that we don’t need you, Minato. I’m not letting anyone but adults fight.”

 

“Why?” I ask, though I have the dreadful feeling that I already know.

 

He expression is grim, even as she answers me. “If this goes the way I think it will, anyone who fights will die.”

 

I nod, salute her, and head home. Vasuman is already there, pacing, and he tells me that Mom left already. Yumiko is curled up in a ball in the linen closet. It’s the safest place in the house because it’s on the first floor and doesn’t share any walls with the outside. Vasuman and I join her, and not minutes after that, the wind hits the house with enough force to make it shudder, and he old timbers creak.

 

I close my eyes and send up a prayer - to La, one of the great spirits of my element in a plea for him to calm down; to Tui, begging her to calm her husband before he killer more of his people; to Lady Kun of the Earth, Mom and Yumiko’s great spirit, asking for their protection, and for the stability of the house; and to Inari, asking if this is truly balance.

 

I haven’t explained who our priests and shamans are on Kyoshi Island, have I? When Kyoshi removed us from the mainland, she didn’t cut just the land, but many spiritual ties as well. Kyoshi has a culture very different than that of any of the other earth kingdoms, and no priest who has come here since has stayed very long. We had to learn how to hold our own, and there was a very simple answer to that; the Kyoshi Warriors. Near the end of her life, the warriors petitioned Kyoshi, and she granted them the authority needed to banish and control spirits for a domain.

 

This means that it is my mother out there right now, fighting to keep us safe. It means that Etsuka, and Kushala, and anyone who was allowed to was chanting to keep up the boundary that protects our village. It means that in the other villages on Kyoshi Island, women are standing against the spirits that La has allowed to rise.

 

Normal humans, even endowed with authority will dissolve before spirits like paper to ashes. Many of those women will die.

 

This is what I think about in that linen closet, turning the houghs over and over in my mind until I can’t stand them anymore. I think about things a lot, but at the same time, I am very impulsive. I stand, and I leave the linen closet, calmly closing the door behind me, and calling water from the air to freeze it in place. I open the front door, and stare out into the storm at rain whips my cheeks. Then I step out of the shelter of the house.

 

()

 

In awe before the great spirit Inari,

 

_ -pain pain pain, I gasp. I try to stand again, to run, but my leg only gives out. A hand wrenches me around to look at a white metal skull and a sword flashes in the bright sunlight above me - _

 

With apprehension and reverence,

 

_ -I try to swallow, but my throat is still painfully dry. I can hear moans from those around me, but I pay them no attention. I can hear the soldiers arguing about how they are going to give us water, and I let my head roll listly back. I will likely be dead before they decide- _

 

I humbly speak.

 

_ -Not my children! I throw myself in front of them, and the fireball impacts my back. I only just manage not to scream, but I can’t help dropping to my knees. Ulva rushes to me with the familiar concern in her eyes- _

 

From morning to night,

 

_ -I throw my weight into the movements, pushing desperately at the ship, bringing it out of the water. Others join in, lightening the load, and I manage to freeze the water before it crashes out of our control, leaving it ice bound and useless to the  _ great  _ Fire - _

 

I will apply myself.

 

_ -I feel sick to my stomach as I watch my child push and pull at the water in her cup. She was my last hope. Now, she is the last of my children who will be delivered to the waves- _

 

I will neither slacken in my profession,

 

_ -I clench my fingers at the black snow falling, then quickly, bitterly bring the net in. Another day of not food- _

 

Nor be neglectful.

 

_ -Ama! But I can’t move, I have to hold myself still, and I stare at the soldier on the other side of the thin wall with hatred,even as I do not dare to breathe- _

Protect my home and my body

 

_ -I stare at the black snow falling into my hand in confusion. Are the spirits mad? I’ve never seen anything like this- _

 

From the twisted deeds of malicious spirits,

 

_ -Water is also ice, and so we follow its patterns to stand firm against the Fire Nation, sharp formations work better for battles like these- _

 

With apprehension and awe, I humbly speak.

 

()

 

I drop to my knees gasping and running the prayer to Inari through my head over and over again. Hands grab my shoulders and pull me back indoors, the door sliding shut in front on me. I close my eyes.

 

“Minato?” Yumiko asks, her voice coming as if from a distance. I vaguely hear Vasuman comforting her, and telling her to go back to the linen closet. Her footsteps patter away from us until there’s silence that is only broken by the fading rain as it hits the roof.

 

“Minato?” Vasuman asks, his voice much lower than Yumiko’s had been. “How do you feel?’

 

I find myself inordinately glad that he hadn’t asked if I felt alright. It takes me a moment to work up the courage, but I eventually manage to reply. “Like I’ve been torn in two.”

 

There’s a sudden stillness to him at those words. “Exactly like you’ve been torn in two?”

 

I nod. Vasuman sighs, then cloth rustles and he picks me up. “Sleep. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

 

I sleep.

 

()

 

The aftermath is as bad as feared. Almost every warrior who fought, died, and only one of the warriors who lives is willing to say a warrior. Suki, a warrior my age from the morning shift  and the headman’s daughter, was nominated leader of the Kyoshi Warriors. While uncertain, she was a good leader, and as time passed without any major mistakes, she slowly grew more certain in her position.

 

When I went to sleep, first Kiran, then Hikari yelled at me when I told them I went out into the storm, then they cried and hugged me. It was awkward, but I deserved it, so I endured it.

 

Mom . . . never came home. We had a small ceremony to burn her body and honor her memory. Yumiko was confused at first, but then I explained to her that it was like Dad, and Ama, and Apa. Mom wasn’t coming back. I’m still not entirely sure what she thinks about it. She was sad, but soon enough she was back to acting cheerful.

 

As for me, my trip into the storm wasn’t without consequences. That feeling of being torn in two - that had happened to my spirit. Vasuman refused to explain anything more than that. He alternated between yelling at me, and healing me. He drove the first couple of people who came to see us away before they got to see me with his snapping.

 

Suki was the first one to get past him, with a no nonsense attitude and a blunt refusal to be driven away. She explained what was happening around the village to me, and told me the news about my mother. Once that was over, she asked me if I wanted to continue to be a Kyoshi warrior. Apparently, a couple of the others had left after the storm, so she was checking with everyone to see how many warriors she had left. I said yes, I was staying. The spirits storm had frightened me and injured me, but I couldn’t back out now.

 

A month passed before Vasuman declared me healed, and it was that long before he explained to me exactly what had happened. First, unless you’re incredibly lucky, fighting spirits requires you to have some kind of authority to back you up. Most priests and shamans get that from their ruler, or from the spirit they serve. On Kyoshi, we get it from the Avatar. The thing is, except for certain circumstances, the authority takes a while to build up. I didn’t have the authority yet, I hadn’t been a Kyoshi warrior for long enough yet.

 

This meant that when I stepped out into the storm, all of the angry spirits tugged at me, and tore off parts of my spirit. If I hadn’t been praying to Inari at the time, if I hadn’t had his attention, then I likely would have died, the spirits would have torn away everything that made me who I was and left me to join the storm.

 

All of that’s accurate enough, but as for what actually happens, it’s hard to describe, and believe you me, I’ve tried. I could say plug, but that makes it sound more secure than it is. An unsew patch is more accurate, but a bit too loose. A seam under hard use is probably a better metaphor. Inari gifted me with a bit of his own spirit, because that’s apparently something spirits can do.

 

Inari gave me some of his spirit to replace what I lost, and that’s all well and good, but the thing is, using the analogy of a seam under hard use, humans are very hard of their spirit, using it constantly. It stands up well enough on its own when it’s made of whole cloth, and held together with wire of its own making. This means that what Vasuman had spent the last month doing as he healed me, was creating and strengthening connections between my spirit and Inari’s donation.

 

(Vasuman a ton of stories of what would have happened if he hadn’t been healing me. They weren’t pretty. Lots of people, thinking they were healed, went wandering off and were never connected to the donated bits of spirit. Those bits eventually left, and the person died. Graphically.)

 

(Vasuman and I got sidetracked for a while here, as he told me other reasons that a spirit might patch a human’s spirit. Apparently, there are three reasons, they like the person, they hate the person, of they don’t want the person to die. Also, there’s a name for humans this happens to. Jadugara, is apparently what people who have been patched up like this are supposed to be called.)

 

There’s also that fact that humans follow the elemental cycle. Most spirits do as well, but Inari doesn’t. It would have been bad enough to be connected to a different element, but once I actually started noticing the changes, being partly of no element was really confusing.

 

It was the small things that happened. Before, I’d been fine wearing blues, yellows, and greens, the colors of earth and water, but now, I forgot half the time that the colors were associated with the elements. People stared at me the first time I went out in the red clothes I’d dyed and sewn, and it wasn’t until Vasuman dragged me back home to change that I figured out why.

 

Questions I’d never considered before, like why exactly we wear colors associated with our elements came to me, and I eagerly questioned Vasuman.

 

I’d defended the Fire Nation and the Air Nomads in discussions before, I thought about things so much that it had been almost natural for me to try. Now, while the mindset of a Water Tribesmen still comes to me easiest, I can slip into the mindset of other elements almost as easily.

 

I told Hikari and Kiran about Inari’s gift in my dreams, and about the questions I thought came from it. To be honest, none of the questions were really all that different from the rest that I thought of on a regular basis, they were just as contemplative and odd, and they were just as likely to get the eyes of half the people I talk to to glaze over.

 

(To be honest, after Vasuman explained that it was far more common for a jadugara to be of two different elements. Some are even able to bend both elements, which honestly makes me shudder.)

 

Working back up to full time shifts as a warrior, once Vasuman releases me from his clutches, is just as bad as it was the last two times, though there is a lot of relief that, after a month of being forbidden from it, I was finally allowed to waterbend again. (Apparently, bending while you heal after becoming a jadugara is invitation for all of the fragile new connections to break, and for the gifted spirit to go wandering off.)

 

Life settles down again though, and everything that was new and raw slowly dulled.

 

Yumiko slowly lost the air of sadness that had settled around her at the news of Mom’s death.Apparently, saving my life was enough to get Vasuman accepted, because people had stopped whispering about him when he wasn’t there, and he was invited to the first town hall meeting after the spirits storm.

  
The more things change, the more they stay the same and all.


	2. Baoshan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's start with honesty.

Let’s start with honesty.

 

I’ve envied Minato and Hikari for almost as long as I can remember.

 

It’s an ugly feeling curling in the pit of my stomach, twisting my words, pulling at me to treat them terribly. I make them laugh, and fall in love almost to spite it.

 

I look at them, and they’re wonderful, smiling at me after every ‘trick’ I pull (I tell them the tricks are supposed to help them learn to dodge without dying - so they can make mistakes that aren’t fatal. Sometimes I can even believe myself.).

 

I look at everyone around me in my waking hours, and I can’t find it in me to reach out because every other sentence feels like a statement of something I can’t do, something I have to force. Every smile is a razor blade, every turned face a rock thrown.

 

Every time I want to rage, there are hands pulling me back, telling me to ignore him to be polite to him to follow his every word. I want to spit and snarl and growl. I want to learn how to pull boulders out of the ground, how to defend myself with all of my talents, not waste my time on the stupid, finicky detail work that I find shoved at me constantly. I don’t want to be calmly repairing ladies jewels and clay pots and priceless artifacts in my grandmother’s shop.

 

I want to learn to fight like Minato - he tells me that on Kyoshi Island, it’s unusual for a man to fight, that most of their warriors are female. I want to learn like Hikari learns - she tells me that everyone in the Fire Nation is taught how to fight from when they’re young. Jealousy smolders in the pit of my stomach, and I have to suppress the eruptive words that want to escape at every casual mention of these differences they make.

 

In my dreams, before Minato arrives, I spend all of my time in a large clearing in the forest. I pull up boulders out of the ground with sharp motions and send them flying. When that no longer satisfies me, I switch to whipping halos of pebbles at targets with lighting fast speed and intensity, letting loose the anger I always have to suppress.

 

Sometimes Minato shows up at the edge of the clearing before exhaustion forces me to rest. He never asks what I’m doing or why, he just offers tips from his training with other earthbenders.

 

It’ll never be enough.

 

Awake, I watch my mother submit to her work as a maid, in a house where she goes through the same motions everyday, and I remember playing with a boy in that house. Though his face and name are long forgotten, I still remember his sister. She’d come across us once, and I remember the stiffness about her, the immovable way she had watched us, the way she turned and the jewels that hung from her hair barely swayed as she followed the call of her teacher.

 

Awake, I sneak out of my bedroom at night and listen at windows in stolen clothes. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I catch snatches of great battles between the spirits, and our Lady is as fearsome as the Lord of the Flames. Today, when I hear people swear by the spirits, they ignore our Lady, and swear by Oma and Shu.

 

Sometimes, I hear stories of Kyoshi, the last Avatar from the Earth Kingdoms. According to all of the public shows and everything the king says, Kyoshi was a man, but at night sometimes I hear whispered stories of an Avatar that was very much so female. (Sometimes, in my dreams, I beg Minato for stories about her, and I sit there, listening to him fumble his way through them.)

 

Sometimes, I hear whispers of the war, enough over time to slowly piece together a picture of what’s happening. The Fire Nation has torn through most of the fertile lands to the north of the Si Wong Desert, and while they’re currently busy pacifying and colonizing their most recent conquests, it’s only a year or two at most before they lay siege to Ba Sing Se. I don’t know what will happen then. Without Ba Sing Se’s support propping up all of the smaller kingdoms like Omashu and Anshun - and Baoshan, my home - they will fall quickly. A century after the Genocide of the Air Nomads, and Fire Nation will control the world.

 

Awake, I steal boy’s clothes, and I save up the money my grandmother sometimes gives me, after a particularly trying day in the store. I watch the boys run past the shop, march past in straight lines, pull carts, walk, always on their way to  _ somewhere _ . I watch how they walk, how they talk, how they move their hands.

 

Awake, I watch the women around me, sometimes wondering if I’m just being a little bit silly. Why can I not settle like they have, and be content?

 

_ Why am I always searching for something more? _ I wonder when I am called in to smooth pieces of glass together for a stained glass window. (The window is meant to go to a temple to the spirits of the earth, and it depicts Oma and Shu together. I don’t ask about Lady Kun.)

 

When grandmother gives me a free day, I dress myself up in stolen clothes and I pretend I’m someone else, pretend I’m on my way to somewhere. (A whole week after the first time, I’m constantly paranoid that someone will come into the shop and recognise me, recognise the boy who had been playing tag in the streets.) I don’t think about what I’m doing. I don’t think about the fact that it’s illegal.

 

My grandmother teaches me to read and write with the clay of the pots and the plaques and the tiles and the figures we make to sell. I learn in between fixing and making and selling things, and I feel an almost vicious satisfaction with every new word I learn. This isn’t power exactly, but it’s one less vulnerability, one less way someone can take advantage of me, of my ignorance.

 

When I’m thirteen, I run away from home.

 

()

 

While I guess you could say that I’d been planning my next move for a while, it hadn’t exactly been something I thought about. I dressed like a boy because I wanted to run around playing tag, and when you got older, girls stopped doing it. I wanted to play marbles, to play jump rope. I don’t want to be restricted to cooking and baking and sewing and cleaning.

 

When I learned enough characters, I made papers for myself as a boy. I didn’t make them to deceive people, but because if I wanted it to look realistic, my handwriting had to look neat. Later on, I got bored of copying the same thing down, so I started making up names, and stories to go along with them. It wasn’t too hard to make a copy of the red official seal after my many years of practice piecing gems and pots back together.

 

I could have gone for years like that. Maybe I would have lingered as I was for the rest of my life - gotten married or become a spinster, taken care of the family business - if it hadn’t happened.

 

There’s something about finding your aunt rocking silently in the corner, eyes staring past a dress covered in blood and . . . and other things. There’s something about seeing the strongest woman you know flinch away from your touch - from everyone, from her  _ husband _ . There’s something about knowing exactly what happened to her, knowing how very easily it could happen to you, that leaves an impression.

 

So I ran away. I stuffed all of the clothes that I would need - clothes I’d gathered over the years that could pass, some food, the fake papers I’d made, and the money my grandmother had given me over the years, and I headed straight for the nearest army recruitment post the next morning. I registered while I was supposed to be manning Grandma’s shop.

 

I was thirteen - stupidly young, naive - but there was a war going on, so I’m accepted for training and placed with a group of boys my age for training.

 

Training lasts 14 weeks, and it’s so different from anything I’ve experienced before. They threw benders and nonbenders together for the most part, with the exception of classes on how to fight other benders. For those classes, they split benders off and teach them how to fight with their bending.

 

I learn quickly that I’m too aggressive to be the perfect fighter - when you fight with earthbending, you are supposed to respond to your opponent’s attacks. It’s not all throwing huge rocks around like I’d practiced by myself. That’s what fighters did in matches were held on the spring solstice for the public’s entertainment, but you can’t do that as a soldier without hitting someone on your side. Instead, they teach us how to pull up walls and spikes and how to send small rocks flying with a flick of the wrist.

 

When we aren’t learning to bend, there are the lessons on how to fight without bending, swim lessons, endurance running, climbing ropes and cliffs the instructors made for us. Though the work’s hard, and I’m more sore every day, I refuse to complain like some of the other boys. Mostly, it's the noble boys who complain, grumbling under their breath time after time that they  _ won't ever use this training _ , that they're  _ going to be officers, not common grunts _ , but I recognize most of the rest of the complainers as children of the artisans that serve the nobles.

 

Because I'm so determined not to complain like the lot of them, I notice that out of the whole lot of them, there only one who isn't constantly whining - who isn't whining at all. I note him, and get back to training.

 

I eat, sleep, drink, and breathe the training. If it hadn’t been for an instructor pulling me aside after the first week of training and telling me on no uncertain terms that if I kept practicing on my own, I would hurt myself and get kicked out, I would have kept practicing long after we were dismissed. Without that, I find that I don’t have much to do during the breaks. All of the boys had made friends while I was out in the field, and whenever I try to join a group, they would stare at me until I went away, then whisper about it.

 

Without much else to do, I find myself fiddling with a bunch of small rocks that I dug up. They feel odd, and it takes me a while to realise why - I’ve bent regular rocks this size before, but I’ve never really focused on them like I focus on the clay pots or the precious and semiprecious stones that people bring us to fix. These stones feel different, so I spend my free time nudging at the miniscule particles with flicks of my fingers.

 

The training seems to last forever, and for no time at all, and suddenly I find myself at the end of it, taking papers that confirm my graduation on one side, and assign me to the City Guard on the other. I passed. I sit there on my bed for an hour of the day we’d been given to pack up and make our way over to the Guard barracks. Then I take a shaky breath, roll the orders back up and shove them back into my bag.

 

That night, after I’ve settled down in the new barracks, new and different people filling the air with snores and groans and the other myriad sounds of a bunch of humans sleeping together, I dream. Minato comes first, like he always does, and I tell him what I’d managed to do. He’s only ten, only just starting to think of joining the Kyoshi Warriors like his mother instead of simply farming the fields, and he’s so excited. He jumps up on me, yelling that he knew I could do it, then asking me what it was like, if I was out fighting the Fire Nation yet-

 

I have to tell him to calm down, to remind him that I’m going to be a City Guard for years before I’m sent out to battle. 

 

Hikari comes a while after him, and she looks confused when I tell her I’ve graduated.

 

“What do you mean you’ve graduated? It’s only been three and a half months! It hasn’t even been a whole year!”

 

She gets worked up, insisting that I need to learn more, and that I hadn’t leaned nearly enough, and are they trying to get me  _ killed _ ? No matter what we say, neither Minato nor I can manage to get her to calm down as she starts crying, so in the end we just curl up under a tree and let her wear herself out. It takes her maybe an hour before she stops crying, sitting on my lap, with a possessive hand around Minato’s arm, and she refuses look up.

 

“I don’t want you to die,” she mumbles into my shirt, her breath still uneven. “I don’t want you to die, but everyone else is always telling me not to worry, that they’ll kill the big bad earthbenders and waterbenders for me. And everyone spends years training - and you only spent a couple of months! I don’t want you to die!”

 

()

 

The dreams ends eventually, like it always does, and I sit up in the busy barracks. I grab my clothes and soap and make a run for the bathroom. And I wonder, in that half abstract way I always do when I wake up, if Minato and Hikari are even real.

 

I pull up a curtain of rock in front of the shower/toilet cubicle, and outside, a couple of guys call me a prude tauntingly as I relieve myself and wash off quickly. I call back to them that there are some sights I want to save for my wife, and they laugh. I know what they’re thinking - in training, guys only pulled up a curtain if they were ashamed of something, or if they wanted to have some fun. Once I’m done, I pull the curtain down and step out of the cubicle with my pajamas under one arm. I head back for my bed, and sit down to strap my boots on.

 

“You’re Kiran, right?”

 

I glance up to see a guy staring at me. It takes me a moment before I recognise him as one of the boys who had been in my training group - the only obviously rich one who hadn’t complained about everything the instructor were putting us through. “I am.”

 

“I’m Gopan,” the guy offers as I finish tying my second boot and stand.

 

I glance over at him and nod. “Hello.”

 

Then I turn and and walk towards the hallway to I can get to the mess hall for breakfast. I sit down at one of the wood benches with a tray after standing in line, and glance at the hourglass over the doorway to see how much time I have. Gopan sits next me as I start in on the porridge, and I try to ignore him as I eat. I finish the food on my plate, then turn to look at him.

 

“So. What do you want?”

 

Gopan glances at me, then pushes his bowl away, ignoring the rest of the porridge. “They’re going to put me in charge of one of the City Districts in a couple of years.”

 

“What’s that got to do with me?”

 

“I was hoping you’d be my deputy.”

 

_ Short, sweet, and to the point. At least he isn’t trying to talk circles around me like the other rich boys. _

 

“Why me? There are dozens that you could choose from, and most of them will have a good lot more experience than I do, especially seeing as I’ve got none.”

 

“I’ve been watching you. You’re smart, and you can think, which is more than some of the others can. And frankly,” he pauses, looking a little embarrassed, “You don’t have any set habits I would have to train out of you.”

 

_ Very to the point. _

 

“And none of the others were good enough? Or one of the guys from the previous sessions?”

 

“Intelligence and creativity are valuable commodities in the army. So, will you be my deputy?” Gopan asks, leaning towards me. With his face so close to me, it’s hard not to focus on his eyes, which are a lighter shade of green than most of the people I’ve met, and slightly unfocused.

 

I wrinkle my nose, push him back so that he’s not in my face, and glance at the hourglass. “Maybe once I get to know you. Right now, I’ve got to go. I’m not going to be late for my first day of work.”

 

()

 

Months pass, and I get used to patrolling the section of the district that I’m assigned to or standing guard at a door with whatever partner I have that day. They never send me out with Gopan - probably something about having at least one experienced member per team - but whenever I’m not on duty, he finds ways to spend time with me.

 

Around the third month, my period starts in the middle of a patrol. I’ve heard of periods before - it was kind of hard to miss my mother and grandmother washing bloodstained cloths when there was no reason for us to have any. The hardest part was figuring out how to get the cloths washed and dry. I manage that by getting enough cloths to last for a week, and taking them to a laundry house, telling them it’s for my sister.

 

I overhear some of the older guards talking in the break room, betting on which of the new-guards they thought would actually make it into the army. The pattern wasn’t hard to discern - a couple of minutes later I could easily see what lines they divided us on. Most of the boys who’d been better at bending during our lessons - the calm ones, the ones who reacted to their opponents and didn’t make the first move were all shoe-ins from staying as guards, while the guys who were aggressive like me were all sure bets for getting into the military.

 

I have to leave before my name comes up, but what I overheard was enough to make me wonder and think. I’d mainly joined the army in order to learn how to protect myself, to get away from the harsh truth of what happened to my aunt, to make sure that what happened to my aunt couldn’t happen to me. I knew that I wouldn’t go straight out to patrol the land and the smaller villages under Baoshan’s wing, but I hadn’t known that I could stay in the city.

 

I have four years before I’m sent out to the actual army. Four years to convince my superiors which job I’ll be better at - soldier or City Guard - and now that I have that choice, I’m not sure what to do. I know how to defend myself now - I’ve learned what I ran away to learn. I thought joining the army was the price I had to play, but now that I know there’s a lesser option . . .

 

I’m not patriotic. I don’t quite hate the place I grew up - it’ll always be home for all of it’s faults - but I’ve heard too much of other places where women and girls have the opportunity, the right to defend themselves. I’m not patriotic, and now that I know there’s a way for me to be safer than I could ever be outside the city, I should take it.

 

I should. I’m not patriotic.

 

But I am jealous. I am the only one of the three of us in my dreams who isn’t serving my home. Minato made the decision to join the Kyoshi Warriors like his mother when he had turned eleven. Hikari’s only six, and she's already a servant in the royal household, already training to be handmaiden to a princess in line for the throne. They have some greater cause than themselves, and I want that. I’m the eldest, but I want to be more like them.

 

This is what makes up my mind - the decision that I’m not going to take the easy way out. At breakfast the next morning, I tell Gopan I’ll do it, I’ll be his deputy.

 

I almost want to laugh as he visibly pauses. I kept him waiting for months as I weighed the pros and cons, but suddenly my path seems clear. Gopan is from a noble house, and from what I heard the day before, he’s pretty much guaranteed a spot in the army. I’ll get my greater cause if I have to cling to him to do it.

 

()

 

_ Ow. Ow. _

 

I try to ignore the stinging rocks and focus on my meditation, but it’s all rather hard  _ with someone throwing rocks at me every few seconds _ . I yelp as the last rock scrapes my arm, and I leap to my feet.

 

“What was that for?”

 

Gopan stares at me, distinctly unimpressed. “I didn’t throw that rock any harder than any of the other ones. Sit back down.”

 

I stare at him, then grumble and do as he says. “Remind me why we’re doing this again?”

 

“Because you-” a rock hits the middle of my back “-need to learn to be less aggressive. You’ll be able to fight better when you’ve got more balance.”

 

“Can’t we do something else? It’s been two turns of the hourglass, and I think I’m covered in bruises.”

 

There’s a pause, then Gopan sighs, and I open my eyes to see him setting down the rocks. “Fine. We can take a break.”

 

_ Finally! _ I stretch and yawn, then slump down, glad to finally be free of the restricting pose. I pull one of the stones that I’ve been working on occasionally out of my pocket and reach out to it to find where I left off. I’m still not entirely sure what I’m doing with these rocks, or even what I want to do with them, but if nothing else, they do keep me busy. Right now, for lack of anything better to do, I’m mostly shifting the particles around so that they form the rigid structures I’m used to feeling when I work at this level.

 

I’m half aware of Gopan settling down next to me, but he doesn’t say anything, so I ignore him and keep shifting the things within the rock slowly, twitching my fingers carefully to bring the particles into alignment.

 

“What are you doing?” Gopan asks, and it takes me a moment to realize that he spoke.

 

I open my eyes, and shake my head to clear it, then I glance over at him. “What do you mean, what am I doing?”

 

“You’re obviously doing something with that rock,” Gopan says, “you’ve been working on it for months, but it doesn’t really seem any different from it was when you first had it.”

 

I hesitate. My grandmother and I were very good at what we did, for working class people, good enough that the lesser nobles sometimes called upon one of us to help instead of the higher class artisans. But in the working class, our work wasn’t something men did, and Gopan knows what class I came from. If I tell him what I’m doing - why I’m doing it, he might figure out that I’m not exactly . . . that I’m not exactly someone who can be his deputy.

 

By law, he would be obligated to turn me in.

 

“It’s nothing,” I say, moving to put the stone back into my pocket. Gopan catches my wrist, still staring at me.

 

“It’s not nothing. That’s the most focused and calm I’ve seen you. You’ve been doing this for months, and you are doing something with it. It is  _ not _ nothing.” He searches my eyes with that odd, unfocused gaze of his. “Kiran, what are you doing with that stone?”

 

I stare helplessly at him. If I don’t answer him now, he’ll just keep asking. He was willing to wait for four months when he asked me to be his deputy. Then, if I had said no, he probably would have left. But I said yes, and I’m his business now, and unless it’s something I straight up refuse to do, something I tell him I cannot do, I don’t think he’ll take no for an answer.

 

“I don’t even know what I’m doing,” I say, looking down at my crossed legs, hoping that the partial answer will satisfy him, but when I look back up he’s still frowning.

 

“Then what do you think you’re doing?”

 

“I don’t know. I guess - I’m trying to make it feel like the other stones I’ve felt.” I tug slightly against the wrist still in his grasp as my eyes drop to the ground again. “Can I go now?”

 

I can feel his eyes against my skin like they’re a physical force. He lets go of my wrist.

 

“You can go.”

 

I quickly stand and make for the door.

 

“And Kiran,” he calls, forcing me to pause and glance back. “Bring the rock with you next time.”

 

()

 

I bring the rock.

 

Actually, that's wrong. I bring a different rock I picked up at some point that I hadn't messed with yet.

 

Today, I'm the first to the courtyard we use to practice. I had one of the patrol routes that stayed closer to the station, so I got back fairly quickly once the patrol time was done.

 

Without Gopan around giving me something to do, without the distraction of home, I'm bored. The last time this happened, I started feeling fiddling around with rocks, but that's not an option right now considering the fact that  _ I'm waiting for the person doing that got me in trouble with. _

 

Eventually, I crouch down and sink my fingers into the dirt. I consider the dirt as I dig my fingers in and root myself there for the moment. I could . . . make something. Gopan will probably notice if I something with any of the rocks, but messing with the dirt won't leave a trace, or at least not one that any other earthbender wouldn't leave. I settle back into a more comfortable position, then pull up with my rolled fingers to bring a chunk of dirt out of the ground.

 

It's easy enough now to separate it into the different possible sizes, each type flying out of the pile at a flick of my wrist. There isn't enough clay to work with unfortunately, so I have to set that aside, along with sand, which I hated working with. This leaves me with the loose silt, which I pull together and crush until it's about as hard as a rock, and the size of two fists.

 

I shift the shape so it's thick disk rather than some sort of blob, look it over critically as I consider what I can make from this amount of material. I consider several designs that would be worse that useless to me considering that I'm not coming right now, and I can't sell them off before I think of making a water jug for myself. It's still nothing I need, but it would be nice to have something to drink when I'm posted at some guardhouse, waiting for people to approach the gate or come running for help.

 

With that decided, I start tapping one foot slightly against the grounded to set the disk spinning. I dig into the center and pull it towards the edge slowly with curved fingers. Over and over, I have push and pull at the silt, urging it into shape, mindlessly boring the difference between working with silt and clay as I push it up.

 

When I'm done, I stop tapping my foot, and slowly set it down onto the pile of sand and clay in front of me. It's not my best work, but I'm used to working with silt, and its misshapen form doesn't stop it from holding water.

 

I glance up reflexively at the sound of footsteps in the corridor, expecting yet another person walk past, in time to see Gopan stride into the courtyard. He nods at me, but the gesture is absent, his attention fixed more on the jug in front of me than on his actions.

 

I glance between them, wondering what's so fascinating about a lopsided, unglazed water jug, before I realize that the jug's unfinished nature makes it rather obvious that I am probably the maker. I restrain the urge to bang my head against the wall. If been so worried about Gopan figuring out I was a girl from the rock that I'd gone and done something even more discriminating to distract myself. Great thinking there, really.

 

I wait stiffly for Gopan to say something, about the jug, about the rock, about who I am, as he sits down in front of me and offers me the small bag that contains his latest attempt to help me find a focus for mediation. It's like there's nothing unusual. He opens his mouth and asks, “Were you teased?”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“Were you teased because you were a stoneworker?” Gopan asks curiously, as if I hadn't been so worried about him finding out just that. “I won't tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about.”

 

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

 

My fingers tighten around the neck of the bag. Suddenly, I'm angry. If it wasn't something that could lead to my identity, I wouldn't be this scared. I wouldn't bother hiding it, I'd fix broken cups in front of the others because I am not ashamed to be a stoneworker. We're not potters or sculptors or masons or glassworkers or jewelers, but we know how to work with their materials. We know how to fix their work so they're as good as new, or better. It takes delicacy and patience that I haven't been able to find anywhere else, and I'm proud.

 

“It's alright!” Gopan says hurriedly, trying to reassure me.

 

“That's not something - that's not something you say to people,” I tell him. I force my fingers to loosen around the bag because sometimes the things he brings are breakable. “You don't just ask - we're in the army! Do you know what people would say if they found out? Do you know what they'll think?”

 

“I'm sorry! It's just - I wanted to know, and I thought it was nothing to be ashamed of, and you'd never minded before -” 

 

I'm on my feet with no memory of how I got there, watching Gopan scramble to match me as I yell. I don't know what I'm saying, and suddenly I can't take it - the panic in his eyes, the confusion, the signs he _ doesn't know _ why I'm so angry, so scared, so frustrated. He doesn't understand, he doesn't know, no one knows - no one can ever know if I want to be able to stay here - and I can't take it.

 

I turn and I bolt out of the courtyard, and I run out of the guard station. I run through the streets, part people, past stalls, past everything. I slide around corners and through alleys, I go under fences and over to heedlessly until I  myself at one of my old favorite places to events on people at night.

 

There are tears that I don't remember, and my chest heaves with a sob as I collapse downwards to bury my face in my knees. I can't stop crying.

 

I think of my mother and my grandmother, of my aunt and my uncle, of how I left them for this. I think of Minato and Hikari in my dreams of how amazing their lives sound. For the first time, I wonder seriously if they're real. I wonder if I really am just as unnatural as the neighbors sometimes whispered I was. I wonder if I should just - just leave. I miss my mother. I miss my grandmother.

 

“Kiran?” I glance up to see Minato hovering over me uncertainly, hands fluttering at his sides like he wants to touch me, but doesn't know if I want him to.

 

I don't want to do this. I want to be alone right now, but Minato looks so worried. I wipe the tears away and take a breath. “You thought of anything new today?”

 

The worried look doesn't fade as he sits down next to me, not touching, but close enough for me to bridge the distance as he starts talking. I let the sound of his voice wash over me as he talks, listening more to the cadence than the words as I force myself to relax.

 

I offer comments on his thoughts occasionally, limiting some to Kyoshi Island, extending others to at least Baoshan. Hikari comes at some point after Minato started talking, and her eyes linger on my face as she sits down in front of us, no doubt noting my puffy eyes.

 

She talks about the royal family, and Minato must have run out of thoughts because he starts telling stories about his sister, and about the funny things that the other Kyoshi Warriors in training have done. I lean against Minato as the stories continue, tired of tears, of anger. When it gets to be time for me to leave, I sit up and stretch. The others watch, used to me leaving first.

 

“He asked me if I was teased for being a stoneworker.”

 

They sit up straight at my words - words they had no doubt been waiting for all night.

 

“I think I'll tell him who I am,” I say as I turn away so that I can't see their reactions. “I . . . I need someone else to know.”

 

I flinch away from the arms that come around me for a moment, then relax into the hug.

 

“It's alright,” Minato says gently as he tucks himself against my side. “It'll be fine. You've told us that he's nice, right? He’ll understand.”

 

()

 

I wake up tucked against the warmth of a chimney. I stay that way for a moment, shivering slightly in the cool morning air before I push myself up. I'm a bit sore in some places from the awkward position I fell asleep in, and my eyes are even more crusted than normal because of the tears.

 

I bring my hand up to run at them, then pull it away from my face at the feeling of fabric against my skin. I peer blankly at the cloth sucking out of my closed first for a moment before I figure out that I should open my first so I could see the rest of whatever it is.

 

I uncurl my fingers slowly, and stare at the small bag. It's the one Gopan's always giving me with his latest attempt to help me find a good focus for mediation. I don't remember bringing it with me. Almost morbidly curious, I pull at the neck of the bag to open it, then dump the contents into my hand.

 

A bunch of gems tumble out, clicking against each other in a way that makes me want to wince and check to see if any have chipped. I don't. I examine the stones, picking them up one at a time to identify them. Most of them have been cut, and as I closer, I can see little scratch marks in the sides of some that indicate they were pulled out of their settings in rings or whatever jewelry they were in. There were also a couple of larger stones, polished, but uncut.

 

I recognize most of the stones easily; there's some very nice amber, topaz, bloodstone, and jade. Then there are a couple of stones that . . . that can't be what I think they are. There is no way he just handed me a bunch of very expensive gemstones. There's no way he handed me emeralds and green sapphires.

 

I look them over again, comparing them to the vague memory I have of the real thing from when one of the upper class woman had let me examine her jewelry as my grandmother fixed her vase in the back room. Then I shake my head. Now’s not the time or place for this - I need to get back to the station in time to report for my patrol.

 

I pour the stones back into the bag -  more carefully than I had taken them out with the possible identity of some of the stones in mind - close it, and tuck it into one of the inner pockets of my jacket.

 

I thread my way through the slowly waking city streets back to my guard post. It takes me longer than I would have liked, but I'd been assigned far enough away that no one who could recognise me was likely to see me, so I can't complain. As I thread my way through the market district, I buy a pair of streaming chicken-pork buns from a yawning vendor, and eat them for breakfast. I arrive back at the station too late to be put on any of the normal patrols.

 

Rasul - the man in charge of assigning missions - glances over me as I walk in, no doubt noting my sleep crumpled clothing. He doesn't comment on it, just orders me to change into my uniform and come out for desk duty.

 

I nod without looking up, and make my way to my bed, to grab my uniform. I go and change in the bathroom, and splash water into my face to clear the lingering tear trails.Rasul nods at me as I emerge, and leaves his spot behind the desk.

 

“Don't forget, if you need any runners, there's a bunch of men sitting in the rec room,” he reminds me from the door of his office. I nod to the closed door, then sit down.

 

The rest of the morning passes slowly, and I find myself playing with the gems Gopan had handed me. Around noon, I glance up from one of the gems (that better not - that can’t be a sapphire), when Rasul clears his throat.

 

“Guard, lunch time.”

 

“Alright?”

 

Rasul gives me a look.

 

“Go eat.”

 

“But I have desk duty,” I protest, even as I scramble to get all of the gems back into the bag.

 

“Go eat lunch officer. I'll put you back on patrol after.”

 

“Yes sir.” I stand, leave the chair for Rasul, and, after a moment's aimless confusion, wander in the direction of the cafeteria. The cooks are only just starting to put out the large trays of cooked meat and vegetables in their sweet and savory sauces, and the pots of oat rice with different seasonings.

 

I wonder what prompted Rasul to release me so early as I grab a tray, and quickly serve myself. Before I can sit down to eat though, footsteps pound into the room, and I glance up just in time to see Gopan as he slides to a stop, relief all over his face.

 

“Kiran! Thanks to the lady,” he says as he advances on me. I step backwards instinctively, and he freezes.

 

An almost hurt look flickers over his face before he frowns, and suddenly just looks sad.

 

“Kiran, I-” he cuts himself off, glancing over at the kitchen where some of the cooks are staring at us. They're doing it discreetly, but it's happening, and I can't help but suddenly feel grateful for them. I should be annoyed at their gossiping, the lack of privacy, but while they're here, it seems that Gopan doesn't want to talk. And I don't want to talk at all after yesterday.

 

I still think I should tell him, still need to tell someone, but abruptly, I don't want to talk. I put my tray on the nearest table and sit, ignoring Gopan. Voices in the hallway signal the approach of more people, but I ignore that. I ignore them and I ignore Gopan, and I ignore everything as I eat my lunch. I thought I could tell him the next time I saw him - I had all night and all morning to get over his questions - but I can't. I'm halfway aware of Gopan sitting across from me with his own tray as more people steadily stream into the mess hall. I don't look up.

 

I just eat, breathe, and try to calm myself down. In the back of my head, determination beats steadily louder.

 

I finish eating, and look up. Across from me, Gopan's picking halfheartedly at his rice, most of it gone, but a good amount still covering the bottom of his bowl. Around us, the mess hall has filled up, and people are talking, filling the room with the soft roar of their conversation.

 

I stand and take my tray over to the kitchen counter to be cleaned, then make for the hallway, trusting Gopan to be right behind me. I wait for him next to the door, and I'm not disappointed when he walks out calmly a couple of seconds after I do.

 

I stare at him for a moment, taking in his surprised expression as he registers my presence, and I feel tired. I feel exhausted.

 

“Come on. Let's go somewhere we can talk privately,” I mutter, crossing my arms. Gopan eyes me, then nods.

 

“I asked to borrow one of the conference rooms. We can talk there,” he says as he starts off down the hallway.

 

I follow him down the hallway. The room he takes us to isn't big; there's only just enough room to pace around the table. I sit. If I stand, I'll run, and this time I won't come back.

 

Gopan paces on the other side of the table, glancing at me every couple of seconds. I take a breath.

 

“I'm not . . . I'm not sorry.”

 

Gopan stops pacing to look over at me, then sits down at the table with a frustrated sigh. “I am. I shouldn't have asked. I don't . . . I'm trying to get to know you, but I don't need to pile at your store spots. I didn't know that. I've never done this before.”

 

He pauses, looks at me. His eyes don't focus on my face, but they never have. In this light, they look darker than they normally do, still not reaching any eye color I would consider normal, but they're not so faintly green. I fold my hands in front of me.

 

“I have to tell you something.”

 

We both pause, watching each other warily.

 

“I'll go first,” I offer after a moment, and he nods. “I'm not a . . . I'm female. As in . . . I wasn't teased for being a stoneworker because it was a perfectly respectable job.”

 

“Oh. I was going to say - do you want me to go - I,“ Gopan stops, looking uncomfortable. “Um. That would explain a lot.”

 

“I would hope not,” I reply, watching him. He's not leaning away. I glance behind me for a moment as footsteps pass the closed door, my heart beat pounding louder in my ears for a moment.

 

“I can see why,” Gopan replies as the footsteps fade away, fingers tapping on the table like he wants to return to pacing, but can't now that he's committed himself to sitting. Then, like he can no longer hold it in, he blurts out, “I'm blind.”

 

I hear his teeth click as he closes his mouth, then the room is silent as he goes still. He doesn't look at me. I watch him for a moment, thinking about the way his eyes don't focus.

 

“Alright.” My fingers are clenched when I look down. I straighten them. I wonder how he reads. “I think that I need some time. To think.”

 

“That's fine,” he replies.

 

I flee the room.

 

Rasul is talking with one of the older guards when I step into the entryway, and he waves me over and assigns me to one of the farther guardhouses. I spend the afternoon there thinking, like I had at the front desk of the station.

 

I still want to be a soldier, to have some greater cause. Gopan is still my best shot at it, and now that we've traded secrets, I can't transfer away from for fear that he'll tell. He can't leave either. Being blind is almost as bad as being female.

 

I wonder what he had intended to tell me before I told him I was a girl.

 

And . . . we could be friends. I could have a friend I don't share dreams with. I've never quite dared to try before; I didn't want to be called crazy.

 

I go to the courtyard we’ve been training in and sit opposite where I had sat yesterday, opposite where I had sat every other day before now. It's new, and I feel slightly nervous at that. I don't know how Gopan will approach me, I don't know if he'll even think to come here after yesterday, and now I don't know the ground around me. But it's a new beginning, and that's what I feel like we need.

 

Gopan comes in only a couple of minutes after me, and it takes him a moment to find me in my new spot. I watch him carefully, track the way how head tiles and what I can see if his eyes, and I wonder if I could have, should have discovered his secret sooner.

 

His eyes meet mine as he turns. Even though I know he can't see, it feels like they're seeing who I really am. Then he smiles at me.


	3. Honoiro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula should look fierce, like a bird of prey, but all I can think of is how fragile birds are.

“Would you happen to have tea for an old man?”

 

I freeze in the middle of setting the teapot down.

 

I know that voice. I know that voice, but he can't be-

 

“Uncle Iroh.”

 

Azula's eyes are focused behind me, narrowed in the defensive glare she always presents when she's hurt, surprised,  _ vulnerable _ . Her voice is the same whip snap of pain as she tilts her head, her sharp gold eyes unwavering. She should look fierce, like a bird of prey, but all I can think of is how fragile birds are.

 

I glance for a moment at the guards scattered throughout the grounds, catching the tail end of Fuyuko’s dress as she walks out of the garden with another guard, probably on their way to inform the Fire Lord. I don't doubt that (Prince? General?) Iroh noticed them - even a prince wouldn't have become a front line general if their situational awareness was that bad - but the promise of backup makes my breathing easier.

 

Azula's fingers tap on the table to between us, giving the illusion of thought, but I can tell from the way she's settled back that she already knows how she's going to answer the question. Then she nods to me, her eyes never leaving the man behind me.

 

“Pour the man some tea, Hikari.”

 

I quickly set another place at the table with the extra cups and plates I'd brought on the off chance that one of Azula's suitors decided to take tea with her, then carefully pour tea. My ears are attuned to every step the man makes, to the shuffle of his feet on the ground, the whisper of cloth.

 

His clothes, when I finally dare look at him, are threadbare and so much like Kiran's that it takes me a moment to recognise the familiar face over them.

 

I can see Azula's tension in the tilt of her cup, in her eyes. I can't blame her. Iroh, like everyone other than her father favoured her brother. I freeze for a moment, guilty as I remember that I've favoured her brother just as much as every other person around Azula has.

 

“Thank you,” Iroh says to me as he picks up his cup. He closes his eyes as he talks a sip. “Mm.”

 

“Uncle. Where have you been?” Azula asks as Iroh sets down his cup. There's genuine interest in the way she's leaving forwards subtly, and caution in the way she brings her cup to her lips.

 

“I would say, but I don't you'd believe me,” Iroh says gently to her. “Now, where's your brother?”

 

_ Dismissal. Asking after her brother. _ I carefully don't wince. Azula shifts, a subtle movement that could be mistaken for relaxation if you don't know her.

 

“He's gone,” Azula says. “Disappeared the night of Father's coronation.”

 

I can't read Iroh as well as I can read Azula, but they must have learned some features from the same people because the way he picks up his cup is eerily familiar.

 

“And how have you been?”

 

_ Changing tactics won't help. _ I glance over at the sundial and have to restrain myself from a sigh of relief.

 

“Princess,” I say softly, bringing both sharp gazes to me. “It's time for your lessons.”

 

Iroh's eyes flicker to her, but Azula just stands, smoothing out the wrinkles in her pants without a glance at her uncle.

 

“Of course.”

 

I leave the tea set out for one of the other servants to handle as Azula walks calmly, confidently out of the garden.

 

We pass the Fire Lord on the way out of the garden, and Azula bows to him with a murmured, “Father.”

 

Fuyuko, behind him, halts at the sight of Azula. Once the Fire Lord has swept away, she falls into step with me behind Azula.

 

“Hikari,” Azula murmurs as we follow a twisting path through this section of the palace, “Do I have any plans for dinner tonight?”

 

“No,” I reply quickly. “All of your suitors have other plans tonight, and you had breakfast with the Fire Lord this morning.”

 

“Hmm.” Azula stops and turns back to me. “Please see if Mai and Ty Lee are available. And make sure that there’s breakfast waiting for me after my lesson.”

 

“Of course, my lady,” I reply, bowing my head. “Will that be all?”

 

Azula hesitates, chewing her lip in a way that would have her etiquette teacher smacking her with a fan, true hesitation shadowing her features for a moment. Then slowly, “Aoi was planning to have dinner alone tonight. Change that.”

 

She turns on her heel and continues on her way to her bending lessons, Fuyuko following quietly in her wake.

 

I hesitate in the main hallway for a moment, then walk over to the wall. Shifting aside a tapestry portraying some act of valor by one of the past Fire Lords, I quickly find the catch for the hidden door, and slip into the dimly lit servant’s passage. I hurry towards the scribe’s room, only pausing to grab a page to tell the cooks to send Azula’s dinner to her quarters tonight.

 

it’s always an honor to receive an invitation to the palace, so I have no doubt that Mai and Ty Lee will be allowed to visit, but considering that nobles usually want at least a day to prepare, I’m glad that Azula didn’t ask me to deliver the invitations in person. I dictate the letters to the scribes from memory, the words familiar after many repetitions, then send them on their way by way of another page outside the scribe’s room.

 

And with that, I find myself at loose ends for the next couple hours. Even with Azula’s orders to have dinner with Aoi, there’s now a large chunk of time that I have entirely to myself.

 

Or, well . . . the first time Azula gave me unaccounted for time was the first day she attended the academy. Normally, personal servants are assigned elsewhere when they aren't needed - and that had always been the case previously - but on her first day of school, Azula had locked eyes with me as she took a folder out from the locked box under her bed, locked the box again, handed me the folder and the key, and told me she wanted a copy of the key.

 

Going to the locksmith to have a key copied, even in person, doesn't take the six hours that she had given me. Understandably curious, I'd opened the file Azula handed me as I waited for the smith to copy the key. I'd promptly slammed it shut as soon as I realized that I was reading the notes from her private history lessons.

 

The first couple lines I skimmed over were enough to convince me that reading them could get me killed. I waited for the locksmith to finish the key, heart beating, feeling like I couldn't breathe, scared I'd drop the folder and someone would realize just what I was holding. I locked the notes away again as soon as I got back to Azula's room.

 

I’d tried to hand her both keys when she arrived back from school, but she'd only accepted one.

 

“How did the Fire Nation first unite?” she asked as she wrapped my fingers around the key the locksmith had made.

 

“I - I don't know,” I stammered, frightened because I did know, the answer had been in the first line of Azula's notes.

 

“A spirit storm of the dead ravaged the battle field, and those who wanted to fight were killed or frightened into peace,” Azula said, eyes sharp. “Who was the first Fire Lord?”

 

“Ryuunosuke,” I reply after a moment, and Azula leaned forwards, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

 

“There is no second key.”

 

Then she turned away and left my fingers wrapped around the key as she asked what her dinner plans were.

 

I’m still not sure what possessed her to do it, or why she has kept giving me more time than I need for simple tasks, but after that, she never gave any indication anything was happening - other hours of extra time. I don’t know why she trusts me with this information, page upon page of proof of the Fire Nation's dirty deeds that pile up until it's obvious that the Fire Lord wasn’t even paving the road to hell with good intentions, no matter what he said. She’s seen me waver from her side for her brother, and if there’s one thing she hates most of all, it’s people who choose her brother over her.

 

I shake my head to pull myself out of my thoughts as I quietly enter Azula’s bedchamber and lock the door behind me.

 

I pull out my keyring as I approach the bed and kneel beside it, the key to the lock box just one of the dozens I keep.

 

()

 

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” I say from the door of the small outdoor garden in the center of Aoi’s suite.

 

“Hikari!” Aoi exclaims, already waving me in. “You're not interrupting at all.”

 

“Aoi was just telling me about all of the books he got his hands on that he could never find back in the colonies,” Gouro says, somehow managing to sound perfectly polite even as his unexpressed exasperation comes through loud and clear.

 

“You like the critical analysis too!”

 

“I'm not the one trying to figure out how to write, thank you.”

 

“You said you liked my writing!”

 

“I said I was glad for the break from it.”

 

“Hikari, you like my writing, don't you? You'll miss it when I leave next week, right?”

 

“You're going home?” I ask, as if the topic hadn't been the topic of gossip for the past week.

 

Both Aoi and Gouro give me identical looks of disbelief, and I manage to hold my serious expression for a moment more before I break into laughter.

 

“I'm kidding, kidding,” I say, waving a hand in their direction.

 

“Good,” Aoi says. “I'd be rather worried if you weren't because for the past week, it's all that people have been able to talk about.” He pauses to take a bite of the mostly forgotten food in front of him before continuing in a falsetto. “ _ Oh, did you hear? One of the princess's suitors is leaving, even though she's not engaged yet.  _ Hmph. Embarrassing - for them. Do they not have lives of their own?”

 

“Why talk about their lives when ours are infinitely more entertaining?” I asks, sympathetic to his grumbling even though I’m mostly immune to the rumors after so many years of them. “But I didn't come to talk to you about rumors. I was wondering if you would keep sending drafts of your writing after you left.”

 

Aoi pauses momentarily, his chopsticks between his mouth and his bowl, a strange expression on his face as he finishes and chews. He'd asked me to read his works in the past, and while they weren't the worst writing I'd ever encountered, I'd told him rather frankly that they were very low on the list of things if want to waste my time on.

 

Gouro had lowered his chopsticks and was now staring at me. He'd been there when Aoi had asked what I really thought.

 

The thing is, while his writing isn’t the most entertaining - he hasn’t quite figured out plot - he is very good at describing settings, people, and the general attitude of a population, and everyone at this table knows it.

 

“I'd be happy to!” Aoi exclaims after a moment. “Tales of the Midnight Figure was your favorite work, right?”

 

That’s his longest work - a collection of poems about the lives of various people in his city.

 

There's a wry twist to his smile as I nod, but he doesn't resist when I turn to other topics - such as which works of literary analysis had caught his eye.

 

The evening wears on as I talk about the literary works I know, and listen to Aoi wax passionate about the ones I don't, Gouro occasionally throwing in a dry comment and pulling Aoi into short arguments. The sun was down for hours when I finally make my way through the hallways and slip past Fuyuko into Azula's room.

 

I find Azula still awake, working on something at her desk by the light of a lantern.

 

“How was dinner?” she asks, sounding almost absent as I walk to her closet and start to pull out her bed clothes, but when I turn around, she's set down the brush and turned to watch me.

 

“It was nice,” I say, moving to lay out the clothing on her bed. “Aoi promised to send me more drafts of his writing, so I've got those to look forward to, but otherwise, he's good at keeping the conversation going. How was your evening?”

 

“Alright,” Azula says. When I look up, she's cleaning her brush and her inkwell is capped. “Mai and Ty Lee were interesting as always, but not much else seems to be happening right now.”

 

She stands, leaving the paper she had been working on out to dry, then pauses thoughtfully. “It's been a year now, hadn't it?”

 

A year since her cousin died.

 

A year since her grandfather died.

 

A year since her father was crowned Fire Lord, and became even more distant.

 

A year since her mother disappeared, presumed dead.

 

A year since her uncle disappeared, presumed dead.

 

A year since her brother disappeared, presumed dead.

 

It's been a year since she lost every single one of her family members.

 

“Yes. A year,” I say, because I don't know what else to do. Azula shakes her head and turns to walk towards me. She silently lets me help her out of her day clothes and into her night clothes, then sits on the edge of the bed so that I can brush her hair.

 

She seems almost lost.

 

When I finally tuck her in, she looks tiny and pale in the huge expanse of her crimson bed.

 

She doesn’t look like the only heir to a genocidal dictatorship. She doesn’t look like someone who is ready for marriage. She doesn’t look like someone who has begun to build their own spy network.

 

She looks like a child.

 

“Good night, Princess,” I say quietly as I pick up the lantern and make my way to the door that leads to my room.

 

“Goodnight, Hikari,” Azula says, and I shut the door, leaving her in darkness.

 

()

 

(That night, when I run through the woods to meet with Kiran and Minato, the first thing they do is tell me I don’t have to do anything. 

 

It’s an odd feeling to not have expectations placed on me. The Fire Nation seems to have forgotten just how young Azula is, and with every year they add to her in their mind, the more she relies on me. It’s nice to be treated my own age for once.)

 

()

 

“Would you happen to have tea for your favorite niece?”

 

Azula’s words are an echo of Iroh's words a month earlier, and I can't help but wonder if Iroh's smile is at the sight of her or at her echoing his words back to him.

 

“Azula! You left court so quickly, I thought that you had a lesson!” Iroh says. “Of course I have tea for you. It's a beautiful brewed jasmine from Yujin, if that's to your taste.”

 

“It is,” Azula says, ignoring Iroh’s comment on the speed of her departure as she calmly moves into the glade. The comment implies many things about Iroh’s skills of observation after a month in the palace and after looking at Azula, who is obviously no longer dolled up in the complex finery required of the princess at court. None of the things implied are complimentary. The statement is a retreat, a concession, and it makes me nervous because this is not how the royal family fights, this is not how the royal family has conversations. It may have been a year since there was more than Azula and Ozai, a year since there was more than silences and snubbing, but I know how the royal family talks, and they do not  _ retreat _ before the fight starts.

 

Kaito - the boy who had been assigned as Iroh’s personal servant upon his return to the palace in the absence of Iroh’s old personal servant - quickly has two places set for Azula and me. Iroh commanders the teapot before Kaito can reach it, and there’s a momentary battle of the wills between them - resigned amusement on Kaito’s side, and passionate on Iroh’s side - before Iroh pours tea for Azula and me.

 

I don’t say anything, can’t say anything, wouldn’t dare because this gesture, too speaks on so many levels -

 

(Fire Nation nobility do not serve tea - to do so is to say that you are lower than the one you serve the tea to, is to say that you serve them, and the nobility will never say that. They don’t even serve tea to the Fire Lord.

 

But I know that in the Earth Kingdoms, the host is the one who serves the tea. In the Earth Kingdoms, to serve another is to prove that you have money, to prove that you are better than them, that you can bear the cost of the meal.

 

I don’t know which level is worse, because I had thought that the rumors of Iroh serving all of his guests were just that - rumor - but if a prince of the Fire Nation serves its nobles, would it be better for him to say that he serves them, or for him to silently declare that he is Earth Kingdom, that their customs are better.

 

(The Fire Nation wasn’t always like this, according to Azula’s lessons. The Fire Lord used to serve tea to anyone because a leader’s role is to serve their people. They don’t mention when the custom twisted.))

 

Kaito offers me a lopsided smile from under his bangs as I settle myself onto the cushion across from him, but it slips down his face when he glances at Iroh.

 

My eyes catch on the brightly colored objects on the table when Iroh sets the pot down and his sleeves are no longer covering them, and my eyes flicker to Azula. This, too, is like a month ago - tension in the line of her hand as she takes her first sip in the not-quite-silence that is traditional.

 

Behind me, I can hear the crunch of Fuyuko’s footsteps as she prowls across the courtyard.  From beyond the wall that makes up one side of this small clearing, I can hear the chatter and splashing water of the laundry (Is he here to listen to them? I can make out Kyo’s voice clearly as she talks with some of the other servants about Lady Ume’s latest indescresssions with her husband’s sister.)

 

Then Azula sets the cup down and smiles. “A lovely cup of tea. From Yujin you said?”

 

“Yes,” the prince replies with a nod and a smile. “It was a great pleasure to find - so rare that Isamu put a ban on exports.”

 

Another weakness revealed - if there’s a ban on exports, then this tea shouldn’t be here. I lift the cup to my lips again.

 

“You wouldn’t have happened to get those dragon scales from Yujin as well?” Azla asks, leaning forward to nod at the colorful pile on the table. “I wasn’t aware that Isamu’s father had any scales left after he made that ridiculously gaudy armour.”

 

Her words are an attack, a test of Iroh’s defences. Yuuma, the former lord of Yujin, was certainly the last acknowledged person to kill a dragon, but the dragon he had killed was green shading towards yellow - nothing like the blue and red scales on the table. More than that, even though dragons are now considered just game to hunt down, dragon scales have never lost their lucky reputation. Iroh either stole the scales or killed the dragon, but either way something should have been announced and there wasn't a whisper of either.

 

Iroh picks up his cup, smiles, and I know that smile. That’s the smile Azula gives when she twists truths into lies. It's the smile Azula uses every day now, manipulating expectations, misleading, redirecting.

 

“Of course I didn’t get these from Yuuma,” Iroh says, picking up one of the red scales and rubbing it with his thumb like a worry stone for a moment before presenting it to Azula. “I killed these dragons myself. Almost sad, really. They were last of their kind.”

 

Azula doesn't take the scale. Her eyes narrow as she stares across the table at her uncle. I stare at the scale in front of me. It's the first time I've been this close to a dragon scale, and there's an interesting pattern on the surface, a shimmering iridescence that catches the light, and  _ you don't just hand dragon scales out. _

 

“What do you want?” Azula demands.

 

“Well,” Iroh says, reaching out to take one of Azula's hands and gently uncurling her fingers so he can place the scale on her palm, “right now, you are the only candidate to inherit the throne.”

 

I'm not looking at her, I'm looking at Kaito, sipping his tea with the resigned air he'd had when Iroh poured the tea, but I know Azula, and I know that her eyes will be flat if I look at her. No longer annoyed, no longer resigned, just flat.

 

She knows that she's the only candidate to inherit the throne, and she hates that fact. There's no one to prove herself against, no way to tell if she truly is the best candidate. She will be - has been - protected, coddled, and urged to provide more heirs, to marry and provide the nation that security, even though she's only nine.

 

“You are also my niece,” Iroh continues, folding Azula's fingers around the dragon scale. “And I may have neglected my duties in the past, but I do care for you. This is the least I can do.”

 

Azula's eyes narrow, but Iroh doesn't say anything else as he sits back, releasing her hand.

 

I absently note that he never did say what he wanted.

 

“Thank you for the tea, uncle. Fuyuko, Hikari, let's go.”

 

There's still the afternoon and dinner to get through. There are still a hundred smiles Azula will have to give, still lies and false praise.

 

And Azula will smile. She will let sand pretend to be softer than she is, and she will leave early to go over Aoi’s latest letter with me.

 

She's used to being second best, and after a year of it, she's used to being the only choice.

 

And when everything else is done, all papers locked away, her hair down, and all but one candle blown out, she will cry into my shoulder because I'm the only one who dares to hug her.

 

And even I haven't told her everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the final chapter of Warriors of a Different Kind. Again, much thanks to DrSmithandJones for her help and proofreading skills.
> 
> Also, I'm thinking of writing a bunch of side stories for things that I didn't manage to fit into these chapters. What do you guys think?

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm onto the next part of this. Credit to my friend, the lovely [DoctorSmithAndJones](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DrSmithAndJones/pseuds/DrSmithAndJones), for bouncing ideas and encouraging me. Thank you! Credit to [Musings of an Ujiko](http://myoubu.com/post/76210424762/translated-inari-norito-1-inari-norito-%E7%A8%B2%E8%8D%B7%E7%A5%9D%E8%A9%9E), for the prayer.


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